A day after BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN went off-script in his BROADWAY show to denounce the TRUMP administration's immigration policy, TRENT REZNOR was in the NEW YORK TIMES saying artists not only have a platform to talk about politics, but an obligation to do so. The platform, he told interviewer MOLLY LAMBERT, comes with that obligation, "because there are people who feel the same way but need someone to articulate it." I screamed in agreement. Now more than ever. I thought of this amazing JLIN quote from a year ago, in the early days of a presidency that has challenged artists to stay quiet while daring them to make noise: "NINA SIMONE ... said when you have a gift you have a responsibility to create and reflect the times. In this day and age, it’s ridiculous for an artist to make something and not have a reason for it. ‘I made it ’cause it sounds good.’ You made something ’cause it sounds good? For real? You’re not doing enough.” I had screamed in agreement then, too. Make noise and make it count. And then Reznor took a swipe at TAYLOR SWIFT, which not surprisingly became the headline, not in the Times, but everywhere else. He is, of course, not the first person to suggest Swift cares too much about her brand and her career to dirty herself with the business of taking a political stand. But there are many ways to articulate your politics, just as there are many ways to reflect the times in your art. You can make arguments and ask questions, as Reznor does on NINE INCH NAILS' new album, BAD WITCH (out Friday). You can make a straight-up protest song. You can make a speech, Springsteen style, to 900 people at the WALTER KERR THEATRE. You can use the sound of your instrument to articulate what no human voice can. You can tell me about yourself, show me a different way of thinking about the world. You can tweet. You can make a point of booking two women as the openers for your summer tour at a time when your REPUTATION is very much on the line. You can make sure one of those women is a Cuban immigrant whose biggest single is a Latin-flavored pop song called "HAVANA" and who will be tweeting and re-tweeting her feelings about the Trump administration's immigration policy from the tour bus. And telling pop fans something about herself, and her way of thinking about the world, every night. I'm glad to know Taylor Swift and CAMILO CABELLO fans are screaming for that, just as I'm glad for another NINE INCH nails album... I screamed again when Reznor reminisced about mistakenly ordering (or, rather, forgetting not to order) a BARRY MANILOW album through the COLUMBIA HOUSE record club when he was a kid. And then: "OK, I own it. I paid a price for it. I’m going to listen the [expletive] out of this thing." Remember what it was like to have to literally invest in music, and how that changed your relationship to it? How maybe you listened differently, and harder? The MUSIC MODERNIZATION ACT isn't going to bring those days back, but it does aim to change the way artists and composers are paid, and maybe that would change our relationship to music in some other way we can't grasp yet. The omnibus bill once seemed like it might sail through CONGRESS, but it has hit some roadblocks both inside and outside the Capitol, and the debate is far from over. Can music and tech companies convince Washington to improve the way artists are paid? And is that in fact what they're doing? MusicSET: "Money for Something: Debating the Music Modernization Act"... Best wishes to RICHARD SWIFT... RIP GÉRARD HOURBETTE, DAN JUGLE and FRANCIS WALKER-SLOCUM.